Component recycling mystery.

[Malcolm T]

Tanuki
So you order up new parts then install them and find out they're fake
That,s blatant fraud !

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by Malcolm T

Tanuki
So you order up new parts then install them and find out they're fake
That,s blatant fraud !

Yes. Various people here have been bitten by supposedly-new parts that turn out to have been pre-used [even going as far as having readable code in 'single-use' PROMs that were sold as new].

Motorola MRF-series RF power transistors from the 70s and 80s are another favourite target for unscrupulous 'recycling'.... At least if you buy new parts from reputable accredited sources there will be some kind of traceability regime - even if it does mean paying £40 for a single RCA IC first produced in the 'sixties, like I did a few months back.

I try to avoid using any pre-used or recycled stuff. Even new-old-stock stuff [AF11x transistors!] is a risk. The audiophools' love of NOS or reclaimed carbon-resistors etc. always amuses me.

[RichardGM]

I'd be grateful for a suggestion of where/how to recycle an unused reel of twin-plus-earth cable. It has the old red/black colour code so presumably can't be used for its original purpose. I suspect the men at the local council tip would point me to the landfill section, which would be a waste of a fair bit of copper.

[Cobaltblue]

Originally Posted by RichardGM

I'd be grateful for a suggestion of where/how to recycle an unused reel of twin-plus-earth cable. It has the old red/black colour code so presumably can't be used for its original purpose. I suspect the men at the local council tip would point me to the landfill section, which would be a waste of a fair bit of copper.

Offer it here Even if just the cost of postage I am sure there are those who can make use of it for something.

Cheers

Mike T

[Boulevardier]

Originally Posted by RichardGM

I'd be grateful for a suggestion of where/how to recycle an unused reel of twin-plus-earth cable. It has the old red/black colour code so presumably can't be used for its original purpose. I suspect the men at the local council tip would point me to the landfill section, which would be a waste of a fair bit of copper.

It might be useful to a DIYer who wanted to extend his house circuits without it being obvious that the work had been done after DIY wirng was disallowed. I know that no one on here would dream of doing that, but some do...

Mike

[GrimJosef]

Originally Posted by RichardGM

... I suspect the men at the local council tip would point me to the landfill section, which would be a waste of a fair bit of copper.

At my local tip it would certainly go into metal re-cycling.

I seem to remember reading somewhere (probably back when copper plumbing was more common than now) that the recycling of copper is surprisingly effective. (We should remember that although it might look as though it covers a large area, the mass of copper on a pcb isn't very high.)

Cheers,

GJ

[Radio Wrangler]

A lot of component legs are plated steel wire.

David

[cmjones01]

When thinking about reusing modern components, it's important to remember just how cheap they are. I work with ordinary surface-mount components and I have to pay for them myself, at least as a business expense. Resistors cost a fraction of a penny, run-of-the-mill ceramic capacitors not much more. When experimenting and debugging it's just not worth saving removed components even if they're perfectly good. They get dropped on the bench or the floor and eventually hoovered up like so much dust. Their cost is so low, and they're supplied in such quantities, that the time taken even to pick them up and look at them, never mind identify them, clean them up and put them away for re-use, just doesn't make sense even when they're right in front of your nose on the bench.

Chris

[MotorBikeLes]

Red and black twin plus earth.
I recently passed so half full reels to a neighbour. I believe it is quite acceptable to use old colour coded cable on an old job, but should never be used on a new job, or a modification to a job with more recent colours.
Boulvardier, are DIYers allowed to do stuff on their electrics now? I thought it was forbidden. As a minimum, it must be inspected and signed off by an accredited electrician who would unlikely sign it off unless it met the requirments.
Les..

[G6Tanuki]

In the late-sixties, while my school-age-cohort were running a poker-den and comparing the merits of Capstan Full-Strength, Players No.6, Kensitas and Woodbines in the churchyard, I was dismantling old radios/TVs gifted to me by relatives/neighbours, and soon acquired a few shoeboxes of resistors/capacitors/valve-sockets etc that I then used to build a bunch of projects from 1960s Practical Wireless.

Usually resulting in total failure - until I went back through the design and replaced all the 'scavenged' parts with new ones from Walton's or Fenwicks in Wolverhampton, or Shrewsbury's Salop Electronics.

A couple of horribly-leaky 15 year old Waxies and an open-circuit 1MOhm grid-resistor can really stymie success in a teenage 1-V-1 radio.

To this day I really regret wasting my time spent dismantling those radios, and the subsequent frustration!

Don't bother messing around with recycled parts if you can buy new ones for a pittance.

[slidertogrid]

Originally Posted by RichardGM

I'd be grateful for a suggestion of where/how to recycle an unused reel of twin-plus-earth cable. It has the old red/black colour code so presumably can't be used for its original purpose. I suspect the men at the local council tip would point me to the landfill section, which would be a waste of a fair bit of copper.

I recently cleared a load of cable on spools from a relative's garage. I simply broke the cardboard cheeks off the spools, pulled out the middle part and took the cable to the local metal yard. It made a surprising amount!

If you choose to do this you will need proof of I.D they will pay cheque or direct into a bank account. (This is a gov requirement to deter the scrap metal thieves)
If you strip the cable and weigh it in as clean copper the price is substantially higher but this of course is not easy and is time consuming.

[Boulevardier]

Originally Posted by MotorBikeLes

Red and black twin plus earth.
I recently passed so half full reels to a neighbour. I believe it is quite acceptable to use old colour coded cable on an old job, but should never be used on a new job, or a modification to a job with more recent colours.
Boulvardier, are DIYers allowed to do stuff on their electrics now? I thought it was forbidden. As a minimum, it must be inspected and signed off by an accredited electrician who would unlikely sign it off unless it met the requirments.
Les..

No , Les, they aren't allowed to. But that was my point - some people are just too mean to pay a qualified electrician loads of money to do a very simple job that they could do perfectly safely and correctly themselves. Such people might prefer to use older red/black cable so that if ever challenged they could argue that the rewiring pre-dated the prohibition. Amazing what some folk will stoop to just to save hundreds of £s...
Mike

[GrimJosef]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

... Don't bother messing around with recycled parts if you can buy new ones for a pittance.

I find they come in handy sometimes when I'm restoring vintage equipment (see the title of the forum !).

In fact you might call my Quad IIs 'recycled parts', I suppose. I could certainly replace them with a box containing two Class D modules and a chunky wall-wart for not much more than a pittance.

I do tend to use new parts on the rare occasions I'm doing new-build. But if I have to lash together a 500V DC supply at short notice I'm quite likely to use a recycled mains transformer and a vintage choke from the stack I have on the workshop shelves.

Cheers,

GJ

[factory]

There is definitely some reuse of components, I remember reading it on the eevblog forum somewhere.
Specialist companies exist to salvage; expensive, long lead time and obsolete parts from surplus boards, they get them back ready for use in new designs.

It also exists in the UK on ebay, there is one seller that must have a good efficient way to remove parts, if you search for test equipment components from some of the big brands (Tek, HP, Racal etc.) you will probably find their listings.

Then there is the stuff that gets to China and removed & passed off as new parts after relabelling, or worse relabelled with incorrect part numbers for more expensive parts as we know.

David

[factory]

Originally Posted by slidertogrid

If you strip the cable and weigh it in as clean copper the price is substantially higher but this of course is not easy and is time consuming.

I was told clean bright copper is more worth more for, arts/crafts, model engineering, melting use, as it's not easy to buy stuff from most scrapyards these days.

David

[Malcolm T]

An interesting German salvage video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzt2Fuy-_ts

[trh01uk]

In fact, some extension/modification of existing wiring by amateurs is allowed under the "Part P" building control regs. Its OK to fit a fused spur and extra socket to an existing ring main for instance, but not OK to fit a new ring main. However if the fused spur is in a "special location" (e.g. a bathroom), it isn't allowed. A bit of a minefield of course.

It isn't necessary to pay a qualified electrician to do anything. A DIYer can do everything - but the work has to be "notified" to building control, and the necessary tests passed, fees paid etc.

As for using cable with the old colours, I doubt whether that is allowed for any such "new work". Its probably OK to replace old cable with more old cable - but how often is that a requirement? I've never needed to do that in many decades.....


Richard

Originally Posted by Boulevardier

No , Les, they aren't allowed to. But that was my point - some people are just too mean to pay a qualified electrician loads of money to do a very simple job that they could do perfectly safely and correctly themselves. Such people might prefer to use older red/black cable so that if ever challenged they could argue that the rewiring pre-dated the prohibition. Amazing what some folk will stoop to just to save hundreds of £s...
Mike

[emeritus]

When installing T&E cable to a light switch, it is acceptable to use brown/blue cable rather than brown/brown, as long as the blue is sleeved with a brown sleeve. By analogy it ought to be OK to sleeve the red and black with brown and blue sleeving, especially if the sleeving leaves none of the underlying insulation visible. But then, common sense and the law do not always coincide.

Likewise, when wiring our extension (under the supervision of the builder's electrician who signed it off), I used some 3 and E cable on the 2 way lighting circuit and the extractor fan circuit. The cable had the standard three-phase insulation colours, so the black and grey both had to be sleeved brown for the lighting circuit, and brown and blue for the extractor fan.

Funnily enough, at the time a drum of the double brown T&E cable was actually a couple of pounds cheaper than ordinary brown/blue T&E, so no brown sleeving was necessary for the ordinary single point light switch circuits.

[Boulevardier]

Originally Posted by trh01uk

In fact, some extension/modification of existing wiring by amateurs is allowed under the "Part P" building control regs. Its OK to fit a fused spur and extra socket to an existing ring main for instance, but not OK to fit a new ring main. However if the fused spur is in a "special location" (e.g. a bathroom), it isn't allowed. A bit of a minefield of course.

It isn't necessary to pay a qualified electrician to do anything. A DIYer can do everything - but the work has to be "notified" to building control, and the necessary tests passed, fees paid etc.

As for using cable with the old colours, I doubt whether that is allowed for any such "new work". Its probably OK to replace old cable with more old cable - but how often is that a requirement? I've never needed to do that in many decades.....


Richard

Thanks for your insights, Richard. I won't add to them, as we'll be seriously off-topic.

Mike

[CambridgeWorks]

We have two types of recycling under discussion now.
The "end disposal of" recycling system and the individual offer and wanted system for more specific items. Such as the shop outlets David mentioned.
The former is mostly government controlled and subject to restrictions.
The latter recycling is useful, but only works if the buyer is happy with the cost and quality of the item being offered. Otherwise, there will be no buyers!
This applies to individual items or quantities, (such as the red/ black t&e cable mentioned earlier).
In recent times, I have offered what I consider useful, not too common items for sale both here and elsewhere. Sometimes a very quick sale.
Often with zero interest.
This puzzles me as often the parts are fairly scarce and would cost a lot more bought on the general market.
To me, this seems people would rather source and buy brand new when actually needed, or just post a Wanted here, rather than "recycle" or re-use old or maybe previously recycled items that are available easily.
Maybe, they will post a Wanted and hope that I or someone else will help out?
I hope I am not going too far OT on this subject.
However, consider G6Tanuki comments about fake rf power transistors of the MRF series. I happen to have a small amount that are known genuine and would hate to think they just went for gold recovery or weee when my estate is cleared upon my demise!
Rob